Fashion: It's a Boy/Girl Thing

Transgender Lea T and Androgynous Andrej Pejjic

It’s that time
of year again and countries all over the world are welcoming some of the
biggest designers, models and celebrities in the unique crush of style, glamour
and drama that is fashion week.
And fashion week wouldn’t be fashion week without the standard
controversy that surrounds it.

Last year, in
response to the demand for models to actually represent the human body rather
than a skeletal representation, "plus size" models stormed many of the catwalks
including Mark Fast’s show. This
year there is a new trend afoot that goes hand in hand with one of the hottest
looks of the season; androgyny.

With transgender
model Lea T and "femiman" icon Andrej Pejic among the androgynous
models who strutted on the autumn/winter 2011-12 runways, audiences were primed
for a gender shake-up.

Lea T is
currently the muse of Riccardo Tisci, the creative director of luxury label
Givenchy and has fronted its latest campaign whilst also gracing the label’s
Haute Couture catwalk shows. "Lea has innate elegance - she's a true goddess!"
gushed Tisci in a recent interview.
Clearly, he is not the only one to have succumbed to her charms as the
Brazilian transgender supermodel has just snagged a campaign with Blue Man, a
swimwear brand based in her native country.

Making a splash - Lea T models swimwear for Blue Man

"I was hoping I
was gay," she said. "Because, for my family, it would be less painful. And then
I could have a normal life." But a normal life couldn’t be further from the
truth for the current darling of the fashion industry who earlier this year "made out" with Kate Moss for the front cover of controversial fashion magazine
Love.

At the other end
of the spectrum is Andrej Pejjic, who, since the fashion industry first began
asking “Who’s the blonde girl?” at the Paris men's shows in 2010, has emerged
as a poster boy for fashion androgyny. With his long, flowing platinum blonde
locks and perfect, ethereal features, he has been stealing some of the most
sought after campaigns from under the noses of the top set of female models.

Bosnian born Pejic immigrated to Australia
at the age of eight with his family to escape the Bosnian war and began
experimenting with make up and hair dye from an early age.

Speaking frankly
about his looks he recently said "I don’t really have that sort of strong gender identity - I identify as
what I am. The fact that people are using it for creative or marketing
purposes, it’s just kind of like having a skill and using it to earn
money."

And use it they
do, from Jean Paul Gaultier to Marc Jacobs, designers are queuing up to book
Pejic in their catwalks and campaigns, but how long will it last in one of the
world’s most notoriously fickle industries?

Time is always of
the essence in the fashion industry but who really cares whether the model is
of male, female, or unspecified gender as long as the end product looks
good? The purpose of a model is to
be a clotheshorse, to ultimately become a manifestation of the designer’s
vision. It is clear to see that
this new type of catwalk "queen" is a designer’s dream-come-true, and in that
respect, let us hope that this curious trend lasts for longer than a season.

Creative, multi-talented and incredibly sarcastic, Lydia Morton is a PR person, journalist and blogger. In her free time she writes for various publications, most recently The RITZ Magazine and Quintessentially Magazine.